Forum:Preparing for the big release
15:07, March 17, 2011 (UTC) ::From a cursory look, that outreach was only to the official EA site, and likely was among hundreds of other submissions. I'm speaking of specific fansites to reach out to. ::Regarding the work-in-progress: ::*We have to make room for the top-right advert anyway, and it currently pushes down our news heading. ::*The featured article is among the slider images. This was something I wanted to try, but I'm not sure if I like it myself. ::*It's a YouTube video from EA's official Battlefield channel... if they allow us to embed, then we don't have any copyright issues. ::*Slider images are directly from the wiki and all constitute as fair use since they are in-game screenshots. ::*Page margins are increased to normal values on the main page. If you take the current main page coding and preview it on any other article, you'll see the same thing. ::*The slider works just fine with the same width on other wikis, such as the Homefront Wiki. ::Any other input/feedback is appreciated. - Bovell (talk) 15:24, March 17, 2011 (UTC) :::Maybe we should set up a news team. Like a group of users who actively update the wiki through blogposts and replace the News section of the main page with maybe a feed of BF Wiki News Blogposts? :::About the Main Page: :::*I like the slider, maybe we could use it to display the featured user,article and picture? :::*The forums section shouldn't be removed. ::::Starting up news blog posts is fairly easily. All we would have to do is create categories for the news (Battlefield 3 news, March 2011 news, etc.) and change the template for news on the main page to show the news blog listings. What this also means is we don't have to update the template every time a piece of news comes in, just create a new blog posting with the news. ::::Forums also added. - Bovell (talk) 16:56, March 17, 2011 (UTC) I like this idea. It certainly could be implemented and would make our front page look better and our wiki look more active. I'd be willing to post news blogs since I'm always checking Kotaku, Joystiq, and the BF Blog for updates on BF3 and such. And Bond, I'm going to be trying to go through all of the images that are unlicensed or improperly licensed and properly source them (anyone who wants to help, please do!), along with working on other stuff. [[User:PresidentEden78|''President Eden]] [[User talk:PresidentEden78|Enclave Radio]] [[Usergroup:Battlefield Wiki Clan|"Join the Enclave today!"'']] 18:08, March 17, 2011 (UTC) Set up news blogs, they're useful and you can use them in conjuction with a Twitter account, in which you link to them in a tweet. A Twitter account is good for numerous reasons: *It's quick and easy to get news out there *It's probably the best medium in which to make yourself known *You can share the account, so it won't be one user with autocratic rule over the Twitter. Also, a redesign of the main page would be nice. I like Bovell's usage of sliders, they're a modern design and would therefore modernise the look of the main page. --Callofduty4 18:24, March 17, 2011 (UTC) Just to make it clear, in case I didn't earlier. I don't dislike your idea or prototype, although I think it's unnecessary. I was just trying to give you some feedback. *Like I said earlier, the slider I like. Maybe the FA could be the default start image though, I missed it first time I looked, so clearly others will and that defeats the point. *I'm glad you re-added the forums but I like the idea of changing the news, I accept it's a bit rubbish, and I'm sure once the practicalities are sorted it'll be fine. Plus, I've been thinking about social network links recently anyway, it first came up on the outreach thing. It's something interesting to look at. *What I was saying regarding the advert was that the News subsection is level with the intro section, so the whole page will get shoved down. Currently, having the news below the intro leaves a gap so the intro box doesn't get pushed down and it flows nicely. *The images and videos might be from this site, but regretfully most media on the site are incorrectly tagged, meaning technically they should be deleted, never mind displayed in prominent positions. We can used licensed stuff though, but it's a ballache tracking down sources for old images. Thanks Eden btw, I've fallen behind on my usual rottweiler routine chasing people *I take it the 4 items on the slider are set. At first I thought it displayed random pages, but if not then that isn't a problem, we can regulate what's put up. *What I was meaning on the width thing was, if the slider is set to XYZpx width then on the main page it'll be too small. As long as it's scaled up, it'll be fine. One thing though, it is very big and wide, it totally scrunches up the news section amd really pushes everything else down *One other small thing. I like the grey boxes around the columns currently. I've tried many-a-time to get an individual box for each section, but anyway, I think they should be restored. *I'm glad you proposed a redesign though. I was planning on rejigging the intro and community messages box anyway. If anyone has any novel ideas for the community messages, feel free to add it in. Currently there's a problem with it, hence the current message. *Maybe put line breaks between the top and bottom of the slider and the stuff above and below, it'll just make it look a bit better *Another thing, the Collaboration's going at the end of the month by the looks of it, so that might leave an empty gap Sorry, I went on a bit! But overall I like your ideas. - 19:35, March 17, 2011 (UTC) :I think I've just about worked all of them ideas into User:Bondpedia/MP Redesign. Most of them were actually me misuderstanding, so sorry where that applies. It's not perfect, but it's basically yours with my ideas built in... - 19:59, March 17, 2011 (UTC) ::I like it. Additionally, the space where the news template is now would fit a news blog listing perfectly. - Bovell (talk) 20:13, March 17, 2011 (UTC) For starters, some communities to potentially reach out to are BF3Blog (they also have a Twitter), and Battlefield 3 Forums. Both seem to have a fairly substantial number of hits. - Bovell (talk) 00:43, March 18, 2011 (UTC) A bit OT, but I started this create-article thing at Battlefield Wiki:Create article, and I was wondering about the feasibility of making that more official, similar to The Vault's version of it. That includes having something like this template above the "create a new article" screen. Just putting it out there for consideration. YuriKaslov 01:01, March 18, 2011 (UTC) Do you think, given the size of this proposal, it should split it into several forums. Maybe Forum:News blogs, Forum:Outreach Forum:Social networks and Forum:Main Page Redesign... - 17:01, March 18, 2011 (UTC) }}